Sometimes the ICF industry is its own worst enemy.

A picture in your March issue is just one of many examples I see happening.

Forty-three feet off the ground, there are no hard hats, no guardrails on the scaffold, no safety line, no backup man on the pump nozzle, no internal vibration, walk board cantilevered dangerously off to one side, and another walk board appears to be a TJI! This sets a bad example for ICF in general – makes installers look irresponsible to GCs. Worse yet, the general public may think this is perfectly fine.

Recently, an ICF installer proudly posted a well-produced video of his pour on YouTube. Again, no hard hats, no safety rails and no internal vibration. There’s a guy on the ground, directly beneath the nozzle man banging on the wall with a 2x4! One commenter asked if that’s the manufacturer’s recommended way to vibrate the wall. Another mentioned that it did not look OSHA compliant. The installer replied that the job was “out in the middle of nowhere,” so OSHA was not likely to drop by.

Irresponsible installers and suppliers are damaging our industry. There is a debacle underway on a higher-education project right now. An ICF manufacturer persuaded a large well-known GC that the ICF spec as written was too tight and if they allowed in the lower grade block and a cheaper installer, they’d save some money. Read More